


So, Now What?

by yoshizora



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Post-Blue Lions Route
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-19
Updated: 2019-08-19
Packaged: 2020-09-07 06:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20305198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yoshizora/pseuds/yoshizora
Summary: Catherine and Shamir discuss what they're going to do after the war.





	So, Now What?

**Author's Note:**

> they're married!!!!!!! 
> 
> i'm in the middle of a golden deers playthrough so maybe i'll write something after i finish that, but here's something i thought of after i beat blue lions

“Hey.”

Oh, it must be _that_ conversation again. Shamir isn’t even surprised, really, that Catherine would pick now of all times to bring it up yet again, while everyone is getting drunk off the festivities and celebrations. Maybe Catherine is drunk, too. That would explain it. 

She doesn’t move when Catherine slings an arm around her shoulders, nor when she’s greeted again with a hot sigh that tickles her ear. Shamir quickly realizes that she is, in fact, not drunk after all.

“_Hey._ Are you ignoring me?”

“Are you going to sulk if I say yes?” 

Catherine laughs and pushes a half-empty champagne flute into Shamir’s palm. There’s a lot to celebrate, yet at the same time, Shamir sees no purpose in making such a grand event of a bloody resolution. _Rest_ sounds much more preferable to dancing and feasting and singing. Most of the people here are Kingdom soldiers, anyway, while Enbarr citizens weep in their homes. 

Everything’s going to be alright— that’s what they’re all saying. 

“Go back inside. I don’t feel like talking right now,” Shamir says, but she sips at the champagne and still doesn’t shrug Catherine’s arm away. 

“You almost never feel like talking,” Catherine shoots back. 

“Point.” 

“Buuut, I figured we might as well address the elephant in the room before we go our separate ways.”

“Ah. I was afraid you’d bring that up.”

Catherine finally relinquishes Shamir’s personal space to lean against the railing and properly inhale the brisk evening air. Brisk, but with that lingering odor of smoke and steel. For the gods’ sake, all the bodies haven’t even been carted away yet. 

But everything’s going to be alright. 

“Lady Rhea… is retiring.” Catherine exhales, and snatches the champagne from Shamir to take a gulp. “I overheard her talking to Seteth about her plans to head off to Zanado.”

“She was conspicuously absent from the festivities.” Not that she particularly minded nor cared. As much as everyone was dying to see Rhea again, they also understood that she was likely in no mood to mingle in a large crowd after all that time spent as the Empire’s prisoner. Shamir tries to think of what she’s really feeling at this expected announcement of Rhea's retirement, but she feels… nothing.

No, that’s wrong. She curls her hands into fists, pressed against the stone railing. 

“So I was thinking," Catherine starts.

“Hm.”

“Someone’s gotta keep an eye on Lady Rhea, right?”

“And it has to be you.”

“I _am_ her most trusted knight. I mean, I’m pretty sure I am.”

Shamir’s fists curl tighter, like that singular split moment before she releases a bowstring to let an arrow fly. 

“You did say you’d always choose her over me.”

It hurts, it hurts, it shouldn’t hurt this much. 

Because relationships are fragile things and anything could happen at any time, as the wars she lived through did, random inexplicable things that could throw human lives off their expected paths and into chaos. Shamir supposes she’s only so lucky that she was able to fight alongside Catherine. And that they both emerged alive. In her dreams and nightmares, she’d seen other paths she could have been pushed down, bloodied and with too many regrets to count. 

Catherine balances the now-empty flute on one finger. Shamir snatches it away before it can drop down into the courtyard below. 

“So I guess you’d be leaving the Knights of Seiros, too?” Catherine asks. 

“Yes, but not to follow Rhea; my debt to her has been paid in full. I was loyal to her, not to the church. If she’s no longer going to be the archbishop, then I don’t have a reason to stay with the knights.” 

“Hm…” Catherine folds her arms and rests her chin on them, and Shamir swears she’s pouting. Catherine doesn’t even need to say it— she was probably planning to ask Shamir to come along, because wouldn’t that be the ideal scenario? She wouldn’t have to pick between them, to wrench their paths into separate branches, because it would be so easy! They could still be together, _with_ Lady Rhea in the picture, just the three of them living who knows where out of civilization’s eye. 

That’s not the kind of life Shamir would want, though. 

“If your heart is set on it, I’d be the last person to stop you. I hope you know that,” Shamir says, cool and indifferent. “Our partnership was nice while it lasted, but there was never a guarantee that it wouldn’t come to an end.” 

“We always did live by completely different principles.”

“With the way we live, and the way we’ll die.”

“Whoa, there’s no need to start getting morbid. Have you been talking to Felix again?” Catherine’s laughter trails off. “So… what’re you gonna be doing, then?”

Shamir shrugs. “Go back to being a mercenary, I suppose. I might follow Leonie for a while to see what she does.” 

“Right, right.” 

“Maybe I’ll go back to Dagda, too.”

Catherine straightens up. “You’re serious?” 

“I’m not… the best at planning things out in the long-term,” she says, and it feels like more of a confession than it’s supposed to be. “Living out each day by ear had always been how I’ve done things. _Surviving_ had always been my priority— I suppose that’s another one of our differences.” 

“Let’s stop talking about our differences, huh?” she says, so blunt that Shamir raises a brow. “Come on. You know what I’m talking about.” 

She looks away. “Then stop beating around the bush.”

“I _want_ this to last. You’re my— we’re _partners!_ Our duties as knights only had half to do with it. This doesn’t have to be where we part ways.” 

Catherine grabs Shamir’s wrist so suddenly; the champagne flute breaks against the ground, but neither of them care to glance down at it. For a moment, Shamir thinks that she ought to pull herself away, but she waits. Because it isn’t supposed to hurt. 

“The future is scary,” Catherine admits, rubbing the back of her neck. “We’ve already gone over this. Our paths could go in completely opposite directions… but it also _couldn’t._ Get what I’m saying?”

“You picked Rhea,” she shoots back, accusing. 

“Well, maybe I’m changing my mind!” She’s raising her voice but she doesn’t care. Her grip on Shamir’s wrist tightens, then loosens. “Lady Rhea gave me salvation, and I’ll never forget my gratitude to her. But you gave me something different, Shamir.”

Catherine won’t allow her room to speak or hiss out another accusation through clenched teeth, her words tumbling out one after the other: “You love me too, don’t you?!” 

Shamir sharply inhales. She feels the blood begin to burn in her veins. 

“She’ll never love me back,” Catherine says, her voice thick. “Not in the way I want her to. I could spend the rest of my life serving and protecting her and I _know_ for a fact that Lady Rhea will never return my feelings.”

“So, what, I’m your safety net? Your second option to fall back on when you don’t get the affection you’re desperate for?” 

“Tell me how you feel, first.” She grabs Shamir’s other wrist. “Don’t hold back. Be honest.”

“You’re drunk.”

“You’re being obstinate.” 

She doesn’t even realize how quickly she’s breathing until she bites her tongue, heart racing ahead of itself. So she defiantly glares right back into Catherine’s eyes, searching for any sort of weakness or deception, but there’s nothing but… her. Should she be angry? Indignant? Heartbroken? 

With reluctance, Shamir swallows back her fury. “… I wanted you to pick _me._” 

To her frustration, Catherine doesn’t even try to crack a smile at that. Instead, she solemnly nods, still holding onto Shamir’s wrists. “I figured as much.” 

“But I would never ask you for that.”

“That’s so considerate of you.”

“It’s like I said. If you want to go with Rhea, I wouldn’t stop you.”

Frowning doesn’t quite suit Catherine, Shamir thinks. 

“Don't worry. You’re not my safety net.” 

“Flattery will get you nowhere.” 

“I mean it! I actually was thinking it over, about what I should do.” Finally, Catherine releases Shamir, backing off to rub at her face with all the weariness in the world. “Rhea never asked me to go with her. I tried to volunteer myself, basically. I… don’t think it really matters to her if I tag along or not. But that doesn’t mean you’re my second option, Shamir— you should’ve been my first.” 

Her anger is simmering. Below it, there’s hope. Shamir takes a step back, and delicate glass shards crunch beneath her boot. Catherine steps forward.

“What I’m trying to say is…” 

“That you’re an idiot.”

“Hey, now!” 

But it doesn’t have to be so complicated, does it? The muscles in her face feel stiff when she smiles, and shakes her head. “Fine, then. I get it. Your admission is more than enough to satisfy me.” 

The elephant in the room is already on its way out; Catherine’s usual swagger is returning by the second, first with the easygoing grin and then with the bravado. She swiftly closes the distance between them, wrapping her arms around Shamir’s waist to pull her in close. Of course.

“Just to seal the deal for certain, I could swear my loyalty to you as a knight. Wanna be my liege, Shamir?”

“… I think I’d rather stay as partners.” 

“Then, how about that marriage proposal you once mentioned?”

The corner of her mouth twitches and Shamir presses her palms up against Catherine’s shoulders. She hadn’t been completely serious at the time, but looking back, she isn’t even certain of herself. Maybe she meant it. Back then. Right now, she does. 

“Sure. That could work.” 

She’s kissing her, then— or maybe _she’s_ kissing _her_, but it doesn’t really matter who instigated it because it’s happening, all of that grief and uncertainty and fears watching entirely away just for that blissful moment. Neither of them even care that they’re stepping on the broken bits of glass or that the taste of champagne is sour upon both their tongues. Shamir feels Catherine threading fingers through her hair, then stroking the back of her neck, and she’s unable to hold back a small sigh— she’s warm, so warm. 

Throughout their days at Garreg Mach, then those five years of war, there was no telling what would happen. Thoughts of the future had always been uncertain, but the comfort of hope kept everyone fighting forward. For _their_ future, however, it was… 

Scary. 

Because there was never a guarantee things would last. 

Catherine presses her forehead to Shamir’s, a breathless laugh separating their kiss. _We’ll go together._ So much doesn’t necessarily need to be said out loud. 

“You’re a terrible kisser, Shamir!” 

“It’s a good thing you’ll be giving me plenty of opportunities to practice, then.” Shamir returns the smile, satisfied by the blush that creeps up her partner’s neck. “I’ll be looking forward to it, Catherine.” 

Their guarantee of differences, of life and death diverging, wouldn’t be a given either.


End file.
